KGTV Part 4

This week, we returned to KGTV for the fourth VJ (or as they call it here), DC (for Digital Correspondent) bootcamp.

There are 10 journalists, camerapeople, editors, producers as well as one assignment editor joining us for the intensive training session to become VJs. Like the rest of KGTV, they will be shooting on Panasonic P2 cameras and cutting it on Final Cut Pro.

When they are finished, they will bring to more than 35 the number of people who have been trained, equipped and fieled at KGTV.

The project at KGTV has so far been an unqualified success.

Ratings are up and the quality of the pieces and the reporting has improved enormously. And we are still just at the beginning. NDs and GMs from across the country, and the heads of station groups have been to see the station and have spoken with ND Gary Brown and GM Derek Dalton and have come away impressed.

Within parent company McGraw Hill as well, the station has received kudos.

Each year, the McGraw-Hill Companies honors a group of employees with their Corporate Achievement Award. McGraw Hill is a big media company. Besides its 9 TV stations, it also has large publishing holdings (Business Week, Aviation Week and others), financial reporting (Standard and Poors), and educational publications; among others.

This year, McGraw Hill awarded its Corporate Achievement Award to KGTV News10, for its “Digital Correspondent Initiative” – read that as the VJ project.

Needless to say, we are delighted.

Congratulations to everyone at KGTV and McGraw Hill who made this possible.

I only count 20 including this class, where are the other 15?
Also…are these folks happy doing the work of 3 people?I mean… besides Kyle Majors?
Don’t go by what they tell you…they’ll kiss your ass every time for fear of losing their jobs if they seem even remotely unhappy with the new concept. Of the 20 I can think of that are still there, I can think of at least 7 that are actively seeking jobs. What do you make of that?

I see now. Watching Closely is in house. Nice. Stop by my desk and see me.

Chalk me up with Kyle. I realize I’m probably rare (I’m not stupid). But I love what I do. Absolutely love it. I’ve worked as a fulltime traditional reporter and anchor on the East Coast. I also did the one-man-banding at my first station (Hagerstown, MD).

I’m not afraid of losing my job. I APPLIED for this job BECAUSE it was a VJ position.

As for the numbers, they’re off. Mike’s mistake. The ultimate goal is 35. I think we have about 20 trained right now.

VJ isn’t for everybody. That’s clear. And that’s fine. As an in-house guy, I hope you aren’t trying to sabotage the whole program without giving it a chance.

This is factually inaccurate. There are not nearly that many trained VJs at KGTV, and ratings went into the toilet. They are just starting to recover. KGTV realized certain people can NOT be trained to be on-air performers and yanked them. The product was painfully amateurish. The VJ program CAN work, but only with people whose skill set is on-air performing. Photographers with no camera performance ability are an embarassment.

Dear Lester,
I don’t know. I did the training.
But the real issue here is the ‘performance’ one.
In the VJ training there are NO standups. No reporter appears on camera, and nor, in my opinion, do they belong there, as they are not the story. The great achilles heel of television news is the notion that it is about ‘performance’ and
the show. “Performance” and the “show” have nothing to do with journalism, but everything to do with Hollywood. Television journalism, if it is to survive, has to return to journalism and leave Hollywood to Hollywood.